2k. Honestly,
enough said.
This week had everyone's favorite erg workout - the 2k. The other day I was listening to one of
my teammates tell another athlete what it was like to do a 2k test. It went along the lines of something
like this-
"So what's this thing about a 2k?"
"We have one tomorrow morning."
"Well, what do you do?"
"It's 2000m as hard as you can possibly go in the shortest
amount of time. You know, it's
kind of like sprinting as hard as you can."
"How long does that take?"
"About 7 minutes."
"Eh, doesn't seem too bad."
Oh man, if you only knew. Everyone handles this workout differently. Some are excited, some nervous, some
come in with a plan, some don't, and some "just go." At the end of the day though, everyone feels the same
thing. After those high strokes
you really start to feel it, anything that was going on beforehand you seem to
forget and your sole focus is just going after it - find your rhythm and
go. With the first five hundred
down you're gunning for the half waypoint. This is when the piece tends to go by a little more
slowly. The adrenaline at the
beginning of the race was there to help you out and now you're starting to feel
that wall. You've got to push
through that wall. When you
finally get to the 1000m mark, the finish seems so close and yet so far away at
the same time. Seven hundred and
fifty left, you're lungs and legs are on fire and you're giving everything you've
got in your tank. You pass the
five hundred and start thinking about your sprint. Gut check. Now
you see who has what it takes, "the guts," to sprint this thing out and finish
strong.
Nope, not too bad at all.
Ok so the 2k test may not be everyone's favorite, but we
all know we need to do it. After
putting a few of these tests under our belt, you can tell the team is becoming
more and more confident with them.
People are PR'ing and learning things that will help them go even faster.
Today was our first day feeling like spring is truly
around the corner. It was 55
degrees out and I even saw people driving with their windows down. All the things we've been learning on
the ergs will finally be put to good use when we get back on the water. A month from now we'll be on our way to
Clemson for spring break. It's
finally really starting to look and feel like racing season.
